Mission: The Family Healing Spot exists for people to feel heard and supported in health and life, especially during transitions (illness, pain, birth, death, divorce, career, etc) so you can get out of stress and pain and get back to living and loving life again.

The journey of the spirit is profound.

I had no idea that my forgotten childhood interests in energy work,  meditation, and making herbal teas under my pine tree would lead to a calling of Acupuncture and healing decades later.

There was a moment in my life when the door opened and all of a sudden the path was very clear. While trying to figure out my next move I took a class; one day my teacher asked what I wanted to do with my life. It was a question I had asked myself so many times before and I didn’t have an answer. When he asked this time, I did. Out of my mouth came the words: “I want to learn healing in Hawaii.” Words spoken from deep within me, a thought I didn’t think that felt so right, a calling if you may. I went to Hawaii to check out the school. I stood in front of the huge red wooden door at World Medicine Institute(Tai Hsuan Foundation) and sobbed uncontrollably at the power within. I entered and realized I had a vision of it five years before. It felt like the exact place I was supposed to be, but I equally doubted leaving my entire life in the city. One of my dear friends said “you can stay here (NYC) and learn orthopedic-style treatments, or you can leave and learn what your spirit is trying to teach you.” Her question created the grounds for a change of perspective and lifetime of learning. So I uprooted my life and left my friends and family, my cat Madison, my fantastic Brooklyn apartment with amazing red couches, restaurants and music shows galore, and the comfort of life in my favorite city in the entire world to move to Hawaii and study Chinese Medicine, Acupuncture, and Herbal Medicine under the guidance of a 64th generation Daoist Master, “Shihfu” Dr Lillian Chang. It was not easy, but it was magical. Inside that tiny one-room school I found my shihfu, life teachers, and tribal family all packed into one. 

I compare Hawaii to LOST (the TV show): it is absolutely beautiful and equally challenging as it puts every single life lesson in your face in an amazingly short time. It is an environment for intimate learning of profound greatness. I took initiative to change, but more importantly, I learned to trust in myself and the world, finally knowing that it will take care of me instead of me trying to move everything. That is the biggest lesson I learned: to go with the flow. Sometimes i still struggle with this, but when I’m overthinking things I have to stop and just trust. It is like riding a wave on a surf board – you paddle out and then you catch the wave/the wave catches you. You cannot look back and fear the wave you’re riding, you just have to go with it until the ride ends and smile along the way while flying on water.

I worked hard to fit a four year program into three as well as finishing three national boards in three months (highly recommend NOT doing that!) and graduated from The World Medicine Institute/Tai Hsuan Foundation in Honolulu, HI, where I received my Masters of Science in Oriental Medicine and Acupuncture (MSTOM) and later a Diplomate Certificate from the NCCAOM.

My undergraduate degree is from Skidmore College with a double major in Psychology and Spanish, with a bunch of music and Indian dance classes for balance. After leaving Saratoga for NYC I took a position working with the world re-known hospital Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on and off for the last 20 years holding positions in clinic management, bone-marrow transplant research, surgical technician, medical photographer, and Acupuncturist. It’s truly an amazing place if anyone ever needs a place like that.

Why Acupuncture? I had migraines from the age of 8 to 25 and in 2004 I was experiencing a three-week long migraine that nothing cut. I tried everything I knew – over the counter medicine, prescription medicine, massage, sauna, steam rooms, yoga, sleep, drinking more water, and the occasional guzzling of coffee

. I kept thinking if I could just release the pressure it will go away. I was walking hunched-over at a super slow pace because I was in so much pain that every step hurt. One day working at the hospital a nurse friend of mine, Resty, saw me in debilitating pain and said “you need to go to my Acupuncturist!” I never heard of it, but was willing to try anything. So I called her Acupuncturist named Ping and went in for a treatment. She said “this is an emergency – if this ever happens again call me anytime of the day!” She put me on the table, put some points in my neck, shoulders, and head, covered me with blankets, put a heat lamp at my feet and let me sleep. Two hours I woke and my migraine was GONE! I asked “what is this and how do I learn it?!” She said “This is Acupuncture, go to China to learn it” which I didn’t think I would do but I did. And I totally loved China and its people. 

I got my applications ready and was nearly enrolled into a great school in the city. Excited as I was, I kept coming up against doubts from the Doctors I worked with and looked up to, so I succumb to the doubts and followed a path of security of allopathic medicine. I took three and a half years of pre-med, started applications for med school, and bought the books for the MCAT. But I couldn’t go thru with it, it just didn’t feel right.

At the time I was a medical photographer and I loved my work.  My patients stated they loved how I was with them. I would ask questions on their health and water intake and listen as they spoke about their feelings of being diagnosed. I felt more and more confident about being a practitioner. I knew I wanted to help people, but as amazing as the physicians I worked with were, conventional medicine didn’t seem holistic enough for me. I would spend an hour and a half with patients while some physicians would spend 10 minutes with them. The MDs spoke about diagnosis while we spoke about life and their fears and getting back to health and trying to feel normal again. Patients broke-down every week in my room, and I knew there was much more to health than a prescription or surgery. I talked to so many Physicians, medical students, Osteopaths, Naturopaths, and others trying to find my way. I had an amazing GP who walked me through all of my fears of working with patients, the responsibilities, and educational doubts I had. Her words helped me immensely: “Anyone can learn medicine from a book, but it is the bedside manner that is going to help your patients, and that, Kim, you have abundantly.”

I take my experiences into practice with my patients. First and foremost, it is about caring for them and getting to know them. Underlying emotions lead directly to the decisions we make that form the state of our health and immune system, illness, and disease. Sometimes our emotions get stuck in the body and cause blockages and pain and illness also. I work with patients on their health through conversation, education, clearing of emotions, personalized nutrition and lifestyle education, Qi Gong /energy / chakra work, Acupuncture, Herbal medicine, Tibetan singing bowls, laser therapy, and other things that come along my way. My patients are my teachers and each one has their own journey to their path.

I have success working with clients dealing with: coughs, colds, allergies, asthma, bronchitis, insomnia, anxiety, stress, depression, grief, heartbreak, emotional blocks, acute and chronic pain, arthritis, tennis elbow, shoulder pain, tendonitis, stiff neck, back pain, hip pain, knee pain, jaw pain, tooth pain, headaches, PMS, dysmenorrhea, cervical ripening (alternative to induction), acid reflux, pre- and post-natal care, sciatica, Bell’s palsy, sprains, breaks, fractures, and radiation toxicity and chemotherapy side effects amongst others. My clients range from 3 days to 95 years, male and female and anywhere in between, first-timers and lifers to this medicine.

I love this medicine, I love acupuncture, I love educating people about incorporating aspects of Chinese medicine into their lives, I love working with my patients, and I love giving them hope and being their ally on the journey. This medicine is greater than anything I’ve ever known. I have used it to help heal my own aches and pains, both physical and emotional, as well as help others make profound changes that so completely move me.

There is a lifetime of growing within this field, and I thank you for taking time to work with and teach me. I wish you the best in health, wealth, and happiness. I open my heart to working with you.

I currently live in NY with my sweet son, Oliver. I am licensed in NY, CT, and NJ. I practice in NY or do distance energy work at times if you need anything.

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With Love, ~Kim